SOFTWARE

1. By 2017, app downloads will total over 250 billion, netting more than $70 billion for stores and developers. Wearable devices will account for half of all app downloads and interactions.

2. Adobe's transition from licensing and maintenance to the Creative Cloud was a major shift. Within four years, it will be copied by every other enterprise software company that didn't start out as a SaaS company.

3. Fueled by innovations in smart televisions and connected cars, the combined value of paid apps, app-enabled purchases of goods and services, and in-app advertising will double to over $150 billion in the U.S. by 2017.

HARDWARE

1. Four Tech Products That Will Be Dead within five years:
• Blu-Ray/DVD players
• Stand-Alone in-car GPS units
• Low-end digital cameras
• Car keys

2. The smart-home market will be worth over $70 billion by 2018.

3. By 2019 we'll be getting regular deliveries to our homes and businesses from commercial delivery drones

4. The IT buyer profile will continue to shift away from IT professionals to line business executives. IT spending by groups outside of IT departments will grow at more than 6 percent per year through 2020.

5. 3-D printing will go mainstream but not for the much-talked-about consumer market. Instead it will be in the supply chain where it will create parts on demand for a manufacturing renaissance ahead.

6. GM will buy Tesla Motors.

COMMUNICATIONS

1. Smartphone installed base will reach 2.5 billion units by 2017.

2. The combined volume of transactions made via mobile phones and tablets will reach more than $3 trillion in the next four years.

3. Spending on cloud services and the technology to enable those services will surge by 25 percent in 2014, reaching more than $100 billion

4. In addition to being a strategic component in virtually all customer engagement and marketing strategies, data from social applications will feed the product and service development process. By 2017, 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies will have an active customer community, up from 30 percent today.

5. The U.S. Postal Service will eliminate residential mail delivery by 2019. The transition will be to centralized community boxes for which there will be an annual service charge.

Rick Richardson

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Rick Richardson is managing partner of Richardson Media & Technologies LLC, a multi-media and strategic technology consulting company. Prior to forming his current company, he had a 28-year career in technology with Ernst & Young, the last twelve years of which he served as National Director of Technology. Rick has been named to the “Technology 100” – the annual honors list of the 100 key achievers in technology in America and honored by the American Institute of CPAs with two lifetime achievement awards for his contributions to the profession in the field of technology.  He is a sought after speaker around the world, providing his annual forecast of future technology trends to thousands of business executives, professionals, community leaders, educators and students.